Blood & Roses
by Tahllydarling
Summary: Mina died for Hansel, some debts can never be repaid.


Gretel waits, although she is not sure what she is waiting for. She has watched over him throughout the night, knowing that when he wakes she will have to deal with his feelings over the death of the white witch. It's not a conversation she is looking forward to.

They've both had flings over the years, one night trysts that don't interfere with the bond they have with one another, hurried couplings with near anonymous partners who aren't encouraged to spend the night, but this one was different. Gretel had seen the expression on her brother's face when he picked up the girl's body and carried her back to town; despite the armour that her brother had built around him, never letting anyone close, this one had meant something to him. This one, with her sweet smile and her giving nature, had touched him in some way.

She watches, holding her breath as his eyes slowly open and she waits for the rage that she knows is coming. Nobody else would know to expect it but she can see the unseen frustration in him, the storm that is brewing beneath the outwardly calm exterior. She waits for words that she knows will hurt both of them, for blame and recrimination and demands for revenge that will precede the release of his true emotions on the subject of Mina.

Hansel doesn't speak but even through the silence his eyes say everything he wants to say and possibly some of the things he doesn't. She sees the grief that dims the stormy blue of his irises, sees the anger he feels when he takes in her injuries which she has treated herself while he slept. His eyes apologise to her for all of his perceived failures and they promise that as long as he breathes he will never let anything harm her again.

"You look like shit," she says softly. The words are largely redundant, ritual and familiar when they find themselves tied up in emotions that they would sooner not admit. He had told her the exact same thing not forty-eight hours earlier in the gingerbread house, just before they took Muriel's head. His lips twitch but he can't quite force his usual smile, the one he saves just for her. His eyes darken, grief clouding them as the memory returns. She knows what is coming and she is as prepared for it as she will get.

Hansel turns his head, looking across the room to where their bags are already packed and waiting. "Where is Mina?" he asks. She sees the emotion there and something inside of her breaks. For the first time Gretel is not his only concern and a strange jealousy flowers inside her, a dark cancerous flower that could destroy her so easily if she allows it to take root and flourish. Hansel is not hers, not in that way. He is her brother, her friend and her twin but even she, a Godless heathen in the eyes of the people she saves, does not transcend the bond of their shared blood. She has no right to feel envy over what he might have shared with another but she does. She should share his grief over Mina's passing, but in this moment she doesn't.

She had watched her brother stagger back to the very edge of town with Mina's body in his arms. She had watched him collapse when his legs could no longer hold him and he had been forced to relinquish her body to Edward. She was there to see the haunted look in his eye when she cleaned Mina's blood off his face and hands, to hear the pain of his mutterings and wipe away the tears that he does not know he shed as he lay sedated on the bed. She has been at his side the entire time, only leaving him in the care of Ben for an hour or two in order to run errands that she would not trust to others. Two days she has waited for this particular storm and she knows that it will not pass quickly. "You were out for two days," she tells him gently, "we took care of it."

The flash of pain cuts at her, but then Hansel's pain has always hurt her more than her own. "Tell me that you didn't burn her," is all he says. His voice is empty, hollow, but she knows that he is waiting for her to offer the details that he needs to hear.

"We buried her," she reassures him. It is the truth, Gretel herself had wielded the shovel that cut the earth for the grave. She had bled for the woman who saved her brother, for the only rival she had ever had for Hansel's affections and she had done it willingly. With sweat and blood she had honoured the sacrifice of the first white witch that she had ever known, placing the wand that she had carried in the redheads hands for the last time before she covered her with dirt. She had done what instinct told her to, sharing her grief with the moon and the stars. "I saw to it myself."

Hansel nods, a sign of gratitude which she accepts. He reaches for her hands, turns them over and observes the bandage that she has wrapped her right palm. Gretel wants to pull away, to put distance between them so that he cannot see what she has done; she doesn't want him to know about the ancient words that she spoke over the grave, of the blood that she spilled into the soil. He knows though, she sees it in his eyes along with his surprise. "You gave her the words …" he comments, unwrapping the linen with shaking fingers until he can see the single clean cut that she made in her skin.

"I gave her the words," she admits, keeping her eyes averted from his own. The words of a thousand blessings were their deepest secret, the words that their mother would whisper over them in the dark to protect and nourish them no matter where they travelled. In death the words were a prayer of safe passage to whatever afterlife awaited the departed. She had known that it was what Hansel would have wanted and she had provided it in his stead. "It was the only thing that I could do for her. I bled for her as she bled for you."

Hansel's hand tightens around hers, his grip almost painful against the barely healing wound in her hand. The wound is a penance, a mourning rite that she will carry in her flesh, an ache that will keep Mina in her thoughts for days and weeks to come, a mark that will forever remind her of how close she came to losing her brother. "Be careful what you awaken sister," he told her, "an offering of blood is a prayer in the dark, we have no way of knowing what the magic you carry is capable of."

Within hours of waking, Hansel is out of bed, washed and dressed. He isn't quite ready for them to continue on their way, he won't be for a couple of days, but he's strong enough for the journey they are about to make. Gretel stays close to him, keeping a watchful eye on the way he moves, the flickers of strain that come and go from his face. The uneven ground outside of town is hard going for him, he stumbles more than once and rights himself. She allows him his pride and says nothing, even at full strength this journey would have proven physically and emotionally draining to him.

"Almost there," she tells him as they approach their destination, "in the clearing between those trees, you'll see it." She hangs back to let him pay his respects in private, watching him steel himself before he steps forward and walks slowly to the place where she had buried the woman who saved him.

Minutes tick by, turning to what could be hours, the light changing position as the sun moves across the sky and Gretel rises from the log on which she sits and goes to seek him out. Head bowed he kneels at the side of the grave, his back to her as she approaches on near silent feet. It looks different in the light of day, sunlight dappling the ground with yellow light and not the colder light of the moon, but Gretel could find it with her eyes closed simply by following her feet. The magic lingers, calling to her, she can taste it, that and the heavy smell of roses that perfumes the air.

"You did this," he tells her without turning, "the magic, the blood, the roses are what you brought forth, a mingling of your essence and hers. I can sense you both when I breathe it in."

Gretel stares at the bed of roses that has appeared over Mina's resting place but doesn't argue. He carries the same blood as her, the same legacy, it is natural to her that he should share some, if not all, of the gifts that come from being the child of a Grand Witch. "I might have provided the power but Mina shaped the gift," she tells him. "I'm not a roses sort of girl."

Hansel climbs to his feet, weaving slightly and steps back from the grave. She pretends not to notice the freshly bandaged wound to his hand or the blood that still seeps through the fabric. The roses have done an excellent job of concealing the disturbance to the ground and in another day or two nobody will be able to tell that there was a burial there at all. "It's better than I could have given her," he admits. She hears the pain in those words, understands what the admission costs him. "You honoured her in a way that I couldn't, you gave life in her memory and left beauty in the darkness. Will they flourish?"

Narrowing her eyes, she stares at the roses and then moves toward them. Reaching out with her injured palm, she touches the petals of one particularly fat bloom, watching as the stems and vines move, turning toward her as if answering a call. She can feel them, she realises, they call to her magic and her magic calls to them. "They'll flourish," she tells him, retracting her hand and crossing the clearing back to his side. "Blood is the river of memory and Mina's will nourish them."

They walk back to town together, side by side, Hansel throwing an arm around her shoulder in a gesture of affection and as a way of leaning on her without making it obvious. Gretel accepts it, allows it because it as much a moment of communion between them, a touching and rebuilding of foundations, as it is a hug. They will be okay, Hansel will be okay. His silent goodbyes to Mina have taken some of the shadows from his eyes, the rest will take time and patience, two things that Gretel has for her brother in abundance.

Days later when they leave Augsberg, Hansel's shields are well and truly back in place. To look at him it would be easy to believe that whatever transpired between him and the white witch had been nothing of importance, but Gretel knows better. He walks with determination but she sees the strain. He speaks with authority but she can feel the doubt. He will heal, of that she is sure, being on the road is helping, late night conversations are helping, but nothing helps so much as spilling the blood of one of Muriel's witches. In that regard they are absolutely in agreement.

As the months pass and her palm heals, they find a new way to honour Mina's memory and Gretel no longer envies the place that she once occupied in Hansel's heart. She has become a part of them, like the matching scars they each bear on their dagger hands, always there in the rushing of their blood or the quiet moments when Gretel wakes from dreams of disaster, the scent of roses and fear still on the air. Her death taught them always to be two steps ahead of the enemy. Soft, gentle Mina is the catalyst that started the purge, her death kindling the fire that burns in them and gives them the strength to do what needs to be done.

Together in the dark, they stare at the moon and they strike the match on yet another funeral pyre, unflinching as the flames dance. Hansel's fingers find hers, his skin warm against her own. There is no room for regret, no past to remember fondly or future in which they live quiet lives to look forward to. It's one more area in which they are completely in agreement, even if they choose not to share it with Edward and Ben, they live in the penetrating wound, in the blood, in the battle cry.

In these quiet moments, wrapped in leather and velvet darkness, they know that they will spill blood in her memory for as long as they live.


End file.
